


Robbers

by jennandblitz



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Blood and Injury, Drinking, Drugs, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Gun Violence, Inspired by Music, Recreational Drug Use, Song: Robbers (The 1975), Songfic, Sort Of, Toxic Relationship, Violence, blackinnon, i love them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:22:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25894351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennandblitz/pseuds/jennandblitz
Summary: Marlene knows they are bad for each other, knows they enable each other, but she can't help it, not when Sirius looks so good on the edge.Life is just black and white, but you, baby, you're technicolour.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Marlene McKinnon
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Robbers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stonecoldhedwig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonecoldhedwig/gifts).



> For my dearest friend, the Prongs to my Foot, the only person capable of making me like Blackinnon. Thanks, pal, I adore you. Thank you also to my twinno FivePips for the beta!
> 
> Inspired entirely and utterly by the video for [Robbers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyy3YOpxL2k) by the 1975, because Matty and Chelsea just scream Blackinnon to me. Enjoy!

The untended grounds of Raughton House have an ethereal sort of feel to them. Marlene often feels as if she’ll encounter ghosts of Blacks past if she spends too long out here, with the overgrown bushes, the trees hanging heavy with unpruned branches, the blankets of wildflowers. The collapsed stables are entirely covered in ivy and other greenery, but the sunset has a beautiful way of peeking through the old roof beams as if it can scare those ghosts away.

The house seems to loom out of the grounds like another spectre—like attracts like—and the first time she’d ended up there, Marlene had found it wildly intimidating. Now, though, it’s home in many ways; perhaps not for the building itself, but for the occupants.

“Lena.”

Marlene looks up for the source of the voice, knowing there’s only three people currently still living who call her that. Sirius is stood on what’s left of a window frame on the second floor, smiling down at her with that grin like a knife-edge. His black hair is falling into his face despite the shaved side James had given him in the summer, high and on a whim, and his by-all-rights _awful_ floral shirt is open and hanging from the pale breadth of his shoulders. Cigarette smoke winnows around him like he’s some demi-god emerging from another plane, but he’s smiling down at Marlene like she’s the goddess and petitioner all in one and her stomach twists in response.

“Come inside, baby,” Sirius continues, taking a drag of his cigarette. He looks dangerous, with the shape of Marlene’s teeth in a chrysanthemum bruise above his collar, with his jeans so low-slung, his belt open. Sirius has his whole world at his feet—if only because Marlene is beneath the window like the Romeo to his Juliet. “It’s getting cold, huh? I bet I could warm you up.”

Marlene rolls her eyes, scoffing a laugh. She’s not cold, not with the half-bottle of wine she’s drank and Sirius’ jacket over her shoulders, but she won’t say no to him warming her up. “Your lines are shit,” she retorts, stepping up onto the fallen pillar of a statue beneath the window.

Sirius holds his cigarette between his teeth and holds one hand out to her to pull her up. “And yet, you fall for them every time.”

“I humour you, _love_.” Marlene admires the flex in Sirius’ arm—his shirts are always rolled to the elbows—as she grasps his hand and he tugs her up in one fluid movement that says something to the regularity of these moments. He draws her in and silences her laughter with a kiss once he’s removed his cigarette from his lips, nipping her bottom lip. Sometimes Marlene will bite back, twist her fingers into Sirius’ shirt and draw him close, but today she laughs instead.

“How sweet of you, _love_ ,” Sirius retorts, his smirk widening. He keeps his grip on Marlene’s hand but shifts their weight so Marlene is leaning back out of the window, her feet on the sill. The breeze whips through her hair and the ground feels miles away even though it’s one storey. Marlene leans into it, trusting him, trusting the exhilaration that seems to become her wings when Sirius is the only thing holding her up from falling. Perhaps, if Marlene hadn’t drank half a bottle of wine and smoked half a joint, she might wonder if this is Sirius pressing against their boundaries, seeing how far he can string Marlene along. It’s futile to test though, because she’ll go, she’ll follow him, let him hold her above ravines and from the top of mountains.

With a grin, Sirius tugs her back onto the windowsill and wraps his arms around her waist. “My angel, you look so cool flying.”

Marlene smiles, rolling her eyes as she winds her arms around his neck, traces her fingers over the shape of her own teeth there. “You promised to warm me up, didn’t you?”

Sirius’ laugh sounds like wildfire as Marlene leads him to their bed, piled high with blankets.

James, Remus and Peter are somewhere downstairs, most likely; unless James has picked up a shift at the bar or Remus is out making a deal, but neither of them care. Sirius’ kisses are whiskey-warm and fuel Marlene like nothing else. As a teen, if someone had told her she would drop out of University, move away from the privilege of her family and move into this run-down manor with a boy she met at a dive bar, she’d laugh and tell them to _fuck off_. But here she is, Capelrig a thousand miles away; her world is at Raughton, in this bed piled with blankets. It’s been a year, maybe two now, and Marlene feels as if she’s wound so tightly with Sirius Black that she cannot pull them apart.

They end up sitting at the window of Sirius’ room, entangled together, naked but for the blankets. Sirius has the shape of Marlene’s teeth in a mirror image to the one from this morning on the other side of his neck and Marlene’s sternum and hipbones are like the pages of the book she used to press flowers between as a child, blooms of red and pink petals Sirius left on a path to bring her to pleasure.

Sirius has his head on Marlene’s stomach and she’s passing her fingers idly through the strands of inky black hair pooling there. Without opening his eyes, he reaches over and snags a pill bottle from next to them, no lid and the label is so faded, but Sirius tips two into his hand then into his mouth. He keeps one between his lips though, kiss-bitten, and tilts his chin up towards Marlene. She leans down, smiling with her own kiss-bitten lips, and kisses him, lets him push the pill into her mouth with the hot slide of his tongue.

Perhaps they fall asleep for a while there, or Marlene just stops thinking with the way the pill she swallowed makes her feel pleasantly warm and fuzzy. Sirius’ chest rises and falls beneath her hand like some rhythmic lullaby. When Marlene comes back to herself with the haze of her high slipping away, it’s dark out and the moon is a sliver in the sky. She wakes from her half-sleep slowly, studying constellations, looking for shooting stars like she used to do as a child. Her senses return one by one: first sight, looking for the stars, then touch, her thighs against the windowsill, the cool of the glass against her arm, then taste, the wine, Sirius’ mouth, his skin. Next comes her sense of smell, cigarette smoke, wine, the smell of Sirius’ sheets, and then finally, her hearing. Marlene can hear the sounds of strumming on a guitar, idly insouciant, with the soft murmur of a singing voice to go with it.

“New song?” She says, a little slurred from tiredness as she turns her head to see Sirius sitting on the bed beneath the window. He’s naked still, with his battered guitar propped on one thigh, a cigarette and that divinely silk-velvet voice at the corner of his mouth.

“Mhmm,” Sirius murmurs, pausing in his strumming to take his cigarette from his mouth and offer the butt-end to Marlene.

“Sounds good.” Marlene slips from the windowsill, uncaring of her own nakedness, and sits next to him to let him slide the cigarette between her lips to take a drag. A moment later, blowing the smoke in a gentle plume between them, Marlene smiles, leans in and kisses him. “Teach me,” she whispers against his fine mouth, nipping at his bottom lip.

Sirius’ grin blooms as he shifts his guitar aside and pats his thigh. He loves doing this, she knows, cocooning her in the planes of his body, wrapping around her and positioning her fingers over the frets with his own strong fingers, pressing a line of little kisses across her shoulder as he does. He likes the way they have moulded to each other over their time together, and that feeling is never more obvious when Marlene is between his legs, half in his lap with his guitar like some kind of offering before them. “C’mere, then.”

They fumble through Sirius’ new song, with him pressing those little kisses to her shoulder, the crook of her neck, his smoke-laced breath huffing over her skin as she laughs at the ticklish nature of those feather-light touches. Eventually, they fall back on the bed again and Sirius barely lifts his head from between Marlene’s legs when his guitar falls to the floor with a _thunk_.

The sun is rising again when Marlene next notices it, still tangled with Sirius. She presses kisses to his sleep-heavy limbs so he wakes enough for her to slip out of his grasp, then shrugs on the nearest clothes from the wardrobe strewn onto the floor. Marlene reaches over Sirius’ dozing form to snag that bottle of pills, swallows another with still-kiss-bitten lips and a tongue that has tasted sweat, skin, love.

Sunrise brings ghosts into the grounds of Raughton, like all times of day, like the changing of the guard. Marlene watches from the porch, a cup of lukewarm coffee and a cigarette in her hands. The gardens are dead and alive all at once, turning over with the breeze at wonderful juncture with the stillness, the dead trees and plants, untended and overgrown.

Back in the house, Marlene can hear James and Peter talking. Perhaps they’re cooking, but Marlene isn’t hungry with the pill in her stomach, thinking of that little bag upstairs in Sirius’ jean pocket. Perhaps later. When she listens again, she can hear Remus too, or rather the dulcet tone of his bass guitar, plucking away like the thrum of Marlene’s heart. She looks back to the sunrise, a smile on her lips.

Later, when Sirius has woken and they become bored with lounging around the house, playing cards, making idle music, Marlene and Sirius venture into the nearest town. They journey in every so often, when James or Remus is driving that way, for a shift at some dive bar or local grocery store. Today they end up at the cinema, and Marlene isn’t sure she’s even seen the title of the film when they step into the darkened theatre, her eyes taking a moment to adjust. Sirius had led her there, pulled her along talking about directors or lighting, and she had floated pleasantly along beside him, so wholly endeared.

The film casts multicoloured shadows across Sirius’ face as he watches with rapt attention. Marlene glances to him occasionally, during a pause between scenes or a long-reaching panoramic, before her gaze goes back to the screen. It’s almost mechanical when Sirius reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a tiny plastic bag, a smattering of white powder at the bottom, without taking his eyes from the screen. Marlene is enthralled too, the car chase scene holding her attention with the roaring soundtrack and the tension there, and she pays no mind to Sirius in her peripheral, only leans towards him and lets him rub a white-dusted finger over her gums. She gives him a sly smile as she presses a kiss to his finger, then settles back in to watch the film.

After, deciding to make a day of it, they head to the cafe on the edge of town like a parody of some filmic date between teenage sweethearts. Marlene watches Sirius with a smile as he orders coffee and brunch of some kind from the waitress then smiles at her in return.

“Boring, isn’t it?” Sirius says as he finishes his third coffee, licks a smear of syrup from his finger. They’ve been sitting there for some unknown amount of time, nursing coffee and talking, laughing, pressing their feet together beneath the table. Taking turns in the single bathroom to snort cocaine off the little glass shelf above the sink.

“This place?” Marlene gestures vaguely to their surroundings.

“Yeah, all of it. Life.” Sirius leans his elbows on the table and fixes her with the silver gaze that turns her insides to warm honey and makes her press her thighs together. “We should do something exciting.”

“What do you suggest?” Marlene asks some time later, when they’re walking the country road back towards Raughton. Sirius is walking a few steps behind her, toeing along the edge of the tarmac, and she turns to look at him, padding backwards in her worn-out boots.

Sirius smiles, raises an eyebrow, and flicks the butt of his cigarette towards the petrol station on the other side of the road. Marlene both hates and loves that she knows _just_ what he means.

Marlene is on the porch again two days later, lukewarm coffee and a cigarette, one of Sirius’ shirts she’s commandeered herself around her shoulders, when Sirius steps out, smiling that secretive, excited smile again.

“I got it,” Sirius says, shutting the porch door behind him and settling on the fence beside her, long legs out in front of him. His jeans are ripped completely at the knees, the white v-neck shirt a sharp contrast to the black denim, but highlighting every bit of him Marlene had beneath her that morning.

“What?” Marlene has forgotten all about their conversation at the cafe, the walk back and the idle plotting of something better suited to one of their films.

In answer, Sirius gestures roughly with the wadded up hoodie in his hands, then unravels the jersey material to reveal a handgun from it. Marlene bites her lip, watches him carefully. God, she’d be lying to herself if she said he didn’t look absurdly sexy with a gun, powerful, _lethal_. She smiles as he gestures with it, feigns shooting it out into the garden, then turns it on her, still smiling.

“Hey!” Marlene hits him in the shoulder, ducking away instinctively as fear burrows through her. Sirius is a loose cannon, she knows, and she will always loosen those bolts even more, twist and turn things to set him free, but this is a step too far, isn’t it? “Stop it, that’s not funny.”

He smiles with one corner of his mouth, laughing as he twirls it in his fingers again. “Don’t you trust me, Lena?” he teases, laughing still, bringing his hand up to graze her temple with just one edge of the barrel.

“Sirius!” Marlene bats him away, smacks her palm into his shoulder. “That’s not funny! What if it had gone off?” She shoves past him then, down the rickety wooden steps of the porch, and onwards.

Sirius doesn’t follow her, and Marlene doesn’t _care_.

It’s a few hours, the sun sinking lower, when Marlene starts back from the other side of the stables, sitting amongst undergrowth and simmering with anger. She doesn’t go right back to the porch, not interested for a moment in seeing Sirius, and really it’s the headache that drives her back towards the house. The circuitous routes through the gardens are overgrown now, once perfectly manicured, and Marlene treads through the plant life aimlessly.

There’s the shell of a summer house amongst it all, and it’s there, on an adjacent path and peering through weeping willow branches, that Marlene sees Sirius, leaning against the dilapidated side wall. He’s swigging from a deep green glass bottle, wincing in the way that tells Marlene there is something strong and sharp in there, and the handgun is still in his other hand. His eyes look bloodshot and Marlene doesn’t know if it’s drugs, drink, or the fact that Marlene walked off and he didn’t follow. He sees her as he swallows his mouthful, his steel gaze widening a little.

“Lena,” Sirius says after he’s wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

Marlene turns on her heel and strides off. She doesn’t want to speak to him, not until he apologises. But Sirius’ footsteps sound behind her, and his hand goes to her arm to pull her back. She digs her heels in, fighting because she does not want to speak to him, but Sirius curls his fingers into the wave of blonde hair behind her ear—glass bottle gone, gun gone—and nudges his nose against her other ear.

“Lena, love,” he murmurs, soft and sweet just like he does when they’re in bed— _Lena, ah fuck, love, there, yes_ —and Marlene melts. She knows they are a powder keg combination, but she can’t help herself, tilting her head to the side and letting Sirius press her back against a wooden archway.

Perhaps she wants to burn just as much as he does.

It’s near dusk when James drops Marlene and Sirius across from the petrol station. Marlene’s red bandana is around her neck, the wind whipping her jacket around her. Sirius sits beside her, on the rundown little brick wall, waiting. His hair is drifting in the breeze, his grey eyes solid steel above the black bandana already around his face, over his nose and mouth. There’s something about him here, as there is almost everywhere. Marlene thinks she will always be attracted to the danger of him like this, the sheer vivacity of a man who lives only in the moment, and fully so. The gun is in the waistband of Sirius’ skinny jeans, and his thin shirt is fastened with only one or two buttons. Marlene’s teeth have marked a whole posie of flowers across his clavicle.

Marlene has the bag in her hand, palm damp around the strap she’s holding, her heart in her throat with excitement, anticipation, fear. The door of the petrol station opens and lets out the patron they had watched go in as James pulled up.

Sirius clears his throat, stands up. “C’mon, my angel,” he says, holding his hand out for Marlene. She takes it, of course, and Sirius tugs her hand to bring her body into his, and presses a kiss to her lips through his bandana. Marlene thrills at that, heat and _life_ running through her as she leans in and kisses back. Then, with Sirius’ steel eyes raking over her, she pulls the red bandana up over her nose, loosens her hair from the back of it, and nods.

Together, they stride across the open expanse of the concrete forecourt. Slow at first, steady and sure, then quickening, breaking into a jog at the pavement. Marlene pulls open the door, lets Sirius step in first, and everything is a blur.

It happens so quickly, roaring in front of Marlene like a film played at twice speed. Sirius is gesturing with the gun, shouting, holding it at the attendant as he frantically shoves fistfuls of money in the bag Marlene holds out for him. A door opens beyond the counter, another employee. Sirius isn’t quick enough and Marlene can’t find her voice to warn him. For a frightening moment the other employee levels the handgun he pulls from beneath the counter at Marlene, but when it fires she doesn’t feel the kind of blooming, excruciating numbness she expects.

Sirius stumbles, presses a hand to his side. The second and third gunshots come quickly, Sirius raising his arm in two sharp motions; Marlene looks away from the thuds.

Comprised entirely of panic now, Marlene yanks the bag back, seizes Sirius around the shoulders and drags him towards the door. Someone is shouting, and she doesn’t quite know who it is, whether it’s her, Sirius, or the two employees. They trip across the forecourt again and Marlene sees James’ van just a moment down the road.

“James!” She screams, starting towards it. Sirius is bent double, staggering with his hand pressed to his ribs and the gun in his other. Marlene thinks somehow he’s still enthralling, commanding with a gesture with the gun, towards the van. The van squeals to a stop before them and Remus throws open the side door, Peter pale-faced beside him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” is all Remus says as Marlene and Sirius climb into the van.

Marlene can feel her head spinning, her breathing short, panic in great bubbles in her chest. Sirius groans and stretches out on the floor, hand still pressed tight to his side and blood oozing from between it. The atmosphere is frantic, James hitting the gas as soon as Sirius hits the deck. Peter and Remus are shouting and Marlene is screaming too, crawling over Sirius and trying to keep him looking at her with shaking hands against his cheeks. Sirius is writhing and Peter is shouting for James to go faster.

“Ah, fuck!” Sirius cries, as Marlene manages to move him so she’s cradling him against her chest, blood on her jeans as she’s holding his head up.

Peter is pressing his hand over the wound too, and Remus strikes a cigarette and holds it to Sirius’ lips so he can take a drag. The sweet smoke tells Marlene is laced with something and she welcomes it, feeling Sirius writhing and twisting with pain against her and hoping it will ease it.

The journey passes in the blink of an eye and Marlene has to put Sirius’ arm around her shoulders so he can stand. He’s panting, filled with pain as they stagger into Raughton.

Through the main doorway, Sirius leaves a bloody handprint on the doorjamb and they spill into the kitchen. Sirius is swigging from that same dark green glass bottle a moment later as Peter tears open the kitchen drawers for cloth or medical supplies. It’s so frantic, Marlene can’t keep up with it, the shouting and Sirius’ cries. She just stays next to him, hand on his shoulder, pressing his hair back from his face.

The bullet just grazed his side, so there’s nothing to dig out. James makes sure though, Sirius cursing and shouting at him as he does, until he’s sure it’s clean. Sirius slumps back in the chair when he’s done, panting hard at the pain.

“Lena, baby,” he mutters, head tipped back. Marlene kisses his forehead as a wash of something like protectiveness hits her. She hauls Sirius up, and they stagger into the bathroom. James and Remus and Peter are still talking but Marlene doesn’t care because Sirius is next to her. He’s shuddering and tripping and Marlene presses him against the vanity in the bathroom.

“Sirius, m’here, m’here,” Marlene says, as she tears through the medicine cabinet, things spilling down as she fumbles for what she needs. Pills first, sliding one between Sirius’ lips with her tongue, kissing him softly. Sirius groans into her mouth, swallowing the pill.

“My angel,” he breathes, as Marlene grabs a towel and presses it hard against his side. There are bloody fingerprints smudged all over the counter, gauze and wipes and bandages as they clean up. Sirius is murmuring some mixture of obscenities and sweet nicknames at Marlene, tipping his head back and writhing with pain.

Sirius’ fingers are bloodied too, and he keeps cupping Marlene’s cheek, sliding his fingers through her hair, touching so tenderly like they’re about to fall into bed. She thinks it might feel a little like that too, both of them breathing hard, pulses hammering, Marlene’s hands on Sirius and making him gasp.

“We did it love, we did it,” Marlene tells him, tearing her gaze from his for a moment to press a gauze bandage over the wound. Sirius hisses in pain, but his steel gaze doesn’t leave Marlene’s face.

“You look so cool,” he whispers, before he leans in and kisses Marlene. She doesn’t care that the wound is bleeding against her hand and there is blood on her cheek and in her hair because Sirius is kissing her, his mouth hot and insistent. His tongue strokes over her bottom lip, languid and hungry and Marlene is helpless against it, his fingers on her cheek, then down her neck to bracket around her throat.

The world grinds to a halt around them, just kissing and kissing, Marlene’s hands palming through Sirius’ hair, down his arms. She slides her hand into his jeans as Sirius undoes her belt, still kissing and kissing. Kissing, touching, gasping. Together, on the edge of living like it’s a cliff they’ve just thrown themselves off; plummeting to being _alive_. Marlene comes with a gasp, almost a sob because Sirius is alive and breathing and this is a thrill like nothing else. Sirius’ groan sounds like _Lena_ as his climax breaks over him and neither of them care about being quiet.

They swallow two more pills with another languid kiss, full of tremors and aftershocks, then tumble out of the bathroom. James, Remus and Peter are in the living room, the curtains drawn and music playing loudly.

Sirius is high as a kite, his pupils wide and Marlene is right up there with him, grinning. Sirius stands on the table and throws an armful of the cash from the petrol station up in the air, then another. James laughs and Peter holds his arms up to the paper rain, grabbing fistfuls and tossing them back up.

Marlene can’t look away from Sirius, though, singing to the music playing, grinning ear to ear. The gauze on his side is starting to bleed through, but she doesn’t care because God, does he paint the most perfect picture like this, shirtless and smiling.

“Lena,” he says, and leans down as she stretches up to him. Marlene knows then, despite it all, that she wouldn’t change a thing, as he hums softly and murmurs, “You look so cool.”


End file.
